Making a Monoprint from a Collagraph Plate

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Mixing Your Printmaking Methods

After I finished playing with my groovy, new Akua Intaglio inks on the collagraph Sinking In, I had a small amount of ink left on my table, and I thought it would be more fun to make another print instead of storing it and cleaning up. (When it comes to clean up, I’m all about efficiencies.)

My cleaned Three Amigos collagraph plate, next to the Three Eurekas monoprint and a ghost print. I should mention here that the eventual clean up of my ink table was easy-peasey: soap and water. An enthused fist bump to the folks at Akua inks for making such a great product.
Inking a collagraph plate with random, leftover printmaking ink using felt dollies

Leftover Ink: Store it, or Make One More Print?

A few years ago, I made a construction paper and mat board collagraph called Three Amigos. I still love the circles and squares composition, so I used the plate again – but this time, to make a monoprint.

My leftover Akua Intaglio ink is on the table in the back ground (above), and I’ve coated the plate loosely with color a la poupee via rolled felt “dollies”, q-tips, my fingers and old paint brushes.

Pulling the Monoprint after a trip through the press

Printmaking is Always Full of Surprises

After a trip through the press against soaked and blotted Arches Cover paper, I’m pulling the print. You can see how well the Akua ink releases from the plate – there’s hardly any left behind.

I wasn’t sure how much ink would stay on the plate, I had one extra sheet of paper soaked & blotted, so I put it through the press to make a very faint ghost (you can see it in the second photo from the top).

After the ink was dry, I played with the image using colored pencils to make the finished print below.


Three Eurekas! 6×8 Monoprint with colored pencil on Arches Cover paper
Process shots start at the bottom of this post
Available on Etsy.  (sold)

Want to Try Printmaking?

If you’re interested in printmaking like this, you can search this blog for keywords to see hundreds of examples and demos going back to 2005. Look for Monotype, Collagraph, Drypoint, etc. Use the search at the very top of the page, towards the right side.

Have a ton of fun making some prints at your dining room table, and thanks for stopping by. I’ll see you in the next post!

Belinda

Art Quote

Art QuoteThe only thing noble about my parents,” once said Rosa Bonheur, “was their character, which is more than many so-called aristocrats can boast.” The genealogical table of the Bonheur family shows that for three generations the ancestors of Rosa were cooks —cooks, of course, who practised their calling with the skill and devotion that made it an art, but still no more than cooks. However, the father, Raymond Bonheur, was an artist in painting. Although three of his ancestors were but cooks, twelve of his fourteen lineal descendants were painters, sculptors, composers, and architects. Among these was his daughter Rosa, the most famous of his five children and the most famous of the women painters of the nineteenth century.
Rosa was born in Bordeaux, France, March 22, 1822. Upon the death of his wife, when Rosa was seven years old, the father moved to Paris, where he hoped to win that success which is the dream of every artist. He never became great, but the little girl who loved to watch her father at his work, and who liked still more to take rambles with him through the woods and country fields, early achieved that fame and prosperity which the father never acquired.
When Rosa decided to become a painter, she spent four years copying the masters in the Louvre before she concluded that her life work would be the painting of animals. She loved nature and had a passion for animated nature. In later years when she lived in the Rue d’Assas she owned and kept near her one horse, one he-goat, one otter, seven lapwings, two hoopoes, one monkey, one sheep, one donkey, and two dogs.

Sketches of Great Artists, by Edwin Watts Chubb 1915

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